Northern Ireland's education minister apologises for email data breach

The education minister of Northern Ireland has apologised for a serious data security incident that compromised the sensitive personal information of more than 400 individuals.

 

On August 1, an email was sent by the Special Educational Needs (SEN) department to 174 individuals who had registered interest for an End-to End Review of a scheduled event. The sender, however, erroneously attached a spreadsheet containing the names and email addresses of 407 individuals to the email.

 

The spreadsheet also included comments made by a number of individuals. After realising the error, the department asked the recipients of the email to delete the same.

 

Acknowledging the error, Paul Givan, the Education Minister of Northern Ireland, said, “My Department is currently investigating the circumstances surrounding a data breach, which occurred on 1 August 2024.

 

“The Department takes its responsibilities around data protection extremely seriously and we unreservedly apologise to all those affected as this should not have happened.”

 

Minister Givan added that the affected individuals have been contacted and been made aware of the data security incident.

 

“I have instructed my Departmental Permanent Secretary to launch a full and thorough investigation into the data breach and this will be led by Internal Audit. In parallel, the Department will be working to put in place measures to help make sure this does not happen again,” he said.

 

“An initial notification has been made to the office of the Information Commissioner regarding the data breach and the Department will continue to engage with them as they conduct their investigation.

 

“As our investigation continues, all those impacted, as well as the Information Commissioner’s Office, will be kept updated,” Givan added.